HYDERABAD: Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Naib Emir Liaquat Baloch has said that after the recent sale of PIA, a plan to sell away more organisations, including Wapda and Pakistan Steel, is also in the pipeline.

He was speaking at a reception hosted in his honour by party workers here on Friday evening.

He lamented that political parties had become “a tool of establishment for the sake of power”.

According to him, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has been given Sindh and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Punjab under a formula; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been handed over to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) considering the party’s popularity.

Baloch said that the irony of Balochistan politics was that members and assembly were toeing the line of establishment. “Elections have become a joke where mandate is stolen,” he remarked.

He noted that in every election, either RTS failed or sometimes 35 punctures become an issue while sometime Form 47 surfaced.

The JI leader said: “Every political party becomes a stick of the establishment in order to seek power. The PPP has handed over its politics to the establishment and remains at its disposal so that it could be used any time”.

He said that actually political parties, and not the civil-military bureaucracy were responsible for all this because they (political parties) were enjoying this kind of politics.

He said that characterless politicians and plunderers of resources could not correct the course of economy.

Liaquat Baloch said that Sindh remained in ruins although the establishment had handed it over to PPP long time ago.

He observed that the health sector was facing destruction. A new formula of resource distribution under the National Finance Commission (NFC) gave more funds to provinces but Sindh faced “loot of its resources”.

He alleged that the recent constitutional amendments were made at will and, therefore, JI believed that politicians should pull out of politics from the blind alley as it was their responsibility.

He said the JI wanted an independent judiciary and the national resources to be distributed judiciously.

He said that usuary had increased in banking and corruption had reached its zenith.

Internal and external forces were out to destabilise Pakistan, he observed, and claimed that those who deviated from constitution were becoming dangerous for the country.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2026